A new hotel in Madrid takes the boutique designer concept to cavalier extremes.

We're all familiar with what happens when boutique hotel entrepreneur meets megalomaniac designer, but why stick with one tired signature architect when you can have 12 different ones all vying for your attention? In what has to be one of the most obscenely lavish hotel design projects ever undertaken outside the Gulf, Hotel Puerta America, which has just opened on the edge of Madrid, boasts the involvement of 12 superstar architects. Each was given a separate floor to design and free creative reign was, somewhat astonishingly, matched with a blank cheque. Another six were engaged to design the hotel's communal areas such as the foyer, restaurant and car park. The cost of the enterprise, masterminded by Spanish chain Grupo Silken, has yet to be properly calculated, but around [euro]75 million is thought to be in the ball park. From Zaha Hadid's impossibly fluid rooms with no corners, to Norman Foster's havens of perfectionist serenity; from David Chipperfield's Zen-like visions of relaxation to Ron Arad's eclectic mixing of moods and materials, Puerta America is the ultimate in deluxe set dressing, bringing the gossamer wing world of superstar architecture to the modern, discerning traveller in one convenient package. In theory, you could stay in a totally different, obsessively conceived 'environment' each night, for nearly two weeks, but that might just drive you crazy. Here we look at who did what and sample some of the interiors. C.S.

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